


A Calm Tome

by explodinganyway



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comfort, F/F, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26561260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodinganyway/pseuds/explodinganyway
Summary: For a second she can see into Inara’s eyes even though the woman has tucked her into her neck.Inara/River
Relationships: Inara Serra/River Tam
Kudos: 8





	A Calm Tome

**Author's Note:**

> Your girl gets it. Some of us had a formative experience & know it was perfectly fine. But Inara putting River in her bedroom was the filthiest most innocent scene that wasn’t River accurately shooting those dudes with her eyes closed.

She wakes up in Inara’s bed quietly. River knows she went down screaming. Hardly feels like it was as loud as anything in her head. The quiet between them now is buzzing but not alarming. If a brutal flash of waking too early hits it’s only because it feels so different. She’s already become accustomed to the robe Inara and Kaylee wrapped her in and if it feels like it matches the room around her then she only draws further into that feeling. Cool and comforting, she meets Inara’s gaze. The woman’s intensity had always alarmed her, the directness of her feeling a little too much like paid service to truly comfort River. The light in her eyes is beautiful though, and thoughtful in the dim light. It feels strange to be in another woman’s bed. When younger it was normal for her but at the academy they had no one climbing in beside her, the thin mattress and crispy sheets hardly having any space to fit another body. Inara’s bed is soft in a way River remembers but isn’t used to and Inara is still holding her closely from when she was trying to settle her. The thoughts of the man in the infirmary had been so loud, louder even than her screaming and she appreciates the closeness.  
  
At her movement, Inara pulls her close again. She is trying to catalogue Inara’s touch. There is something methodical about it, something that speaks of ease if not experience. River stirs and Inara’s hands return to her hair. She has seen her do Kaylee’s hair once before, the smooth brushing and high style like River was used to doing many years before. Or having done to her. Inara’s nails hit her scalp though and her body runs hot and shivers all at once. Rivers head has felt so much plastic and metal across it, the ticking maps they made feeling like fingers as well, but Inara touches her scalp like she isn’t trying to get at the open inside part of River’s brain. If, in the red light and soft push of both her and Inara’s legs crossing slightly, Inara’s fingers do dip into the galaxy wide dark of her brain then River doesn’t flinch away from it. For a second she can see into Inara’s eyes even though the woman has tucked her into her neck. River is thankful; it would be too much to see truthfully into her eyes while bleeding the edges of her solid form and instead, just stretches out her foot cat like and lazy until it’s held at a tense point and completes the join of their bodies into a circle.  
  
She should be focusing on getting uncrazy after yelling so loudly in front of her but Inara’s presence hardly leads itself to any reality River has been presented with before so she stays in the half alive wispy state and leans closer into the woman. For a second, Serenity is silent except for the spin of Inara’s eyes that River is stealing. She sees the edges of Inara’s head, sees the top of her own head through Inara’s eyes, sees that dark brown bleeding into the black of increased heart rate. As she touches the edge of Inara’s head, she lets her foot press perfectly into the tight soft part behind Inara’s knee; feels the adjustment the woman makes against her like a half hidden shuffling. She likes the thought of pleasing Inara and so allows the comfort to continue until the dark part of her brain is being melted and moved molten. She should probably not be allowed to be indulgent with Inara like this, thinks that the woman must usually charge lots of money for people to be in her service in such a way but Inara is warm and pliable beneath Rivers’s dropped body as well and so the melding feels more like give and take. Tension between them flows evenly and River worries that she might never want to move.  
  
The screaming of the man is still coming and going but it sounds far off. If she can still see the hospital room through his eyes then the sense memory of the needles is dulled for the first time since she rewoke. A flinch, for a second, but it coincides with Mal walking through the first of the separated airlocks. Inara stirs a second later and pulls River to a more innocent position. By the time Mal walks through the curtain they could be carer and patient, they could be friends. Inara’s leg is held out of reach of River’s foot even as she can still feel tremors throughout her. If Mal, for a second doesn’t note their new innocent position and winces away from an image of the two of them together then River steals that too. Service or comfort or a relieving of professional stresses, all three make River want to, just once, press herself against the true silk fabric across the woman’s legs. She doesn’t look up but makes eye contact with Mal through Inara’s eyes. The look of him in front of them watching them is interesting and River appreciates that he can’t see her watching; that he can’t see the wet way she had been against Inara’s thigh. She closes her eyes to maintain the calm that is through Inara’s forearms if not the rest of her and pretends she can’t hear the turned on vibration of interest between the three of them.Her body stills to statue and her foot aches to be back against Inara’s legs just for a moment longer.  
  
“Alliance are docking in 1 minute. They are searching the ship, time to move.”


End file.
